Standing above me, the looming body of the troll sways unsteadily from side to side, struggling to keep its balance on the cracked dirt floor of the arena after it was destroyed by one of Lust’s heavy kicks. Its head is drooping limply to one side, and there’s a large, gaping hole embedded in its stomach.

It’s dead.

Yet, despite its unquestionable deadness, it somehow managed to walk itself over here and swat Lust off of me before she started pummelling my face into the floor, sending her body rolling across the fractured field.

“Keh-heh! I think I’m starting to get the hang of this!” A muffled but familiar voice calls out in triumph from inside the troll.

Awkwardly dragging its arm up, it raises an open hand to the hole in its stomach and begins clenching and unclenching its fist in front of the gaping wound.

“Hmm, let’s see...” the voice mutters to itself as the troll continues to flex its hand. “Damage to right hand is... Keh, lost one of the fingers. Still seems to be operational though.”

Jumping to my feet, I dust the dirt off my clothes and address the dead troll. Or rather, the muffled voice from inside the dead troll.

“Fwah! Mei-Mei! What’re you doing in there? Did you get eaten?”

It’s Mei-Mei. The unmistakable voice of the tiny dead dwarf is clearly coming from inside the not-so-tiny dead troll.

“I didn’t get eaten, idiot!” Mei-Mei shouts down at me, poking her little pink head out from the troll’s stomach wound. “I climbed in here of my own volition!”

“Okay...” Blinking up at her, I tilt my head to the side. “But why?”

“Don’t look at me like that! You’re the last person I want looking at me like I’m some kind of idiot! Initially it was to escape the slavers back at the camp, but I quickly realized just how useful this body could be if I were to assume control of it instead. It’s similar to how I used that prisoner’s legs in the Spire, except on a much larger scale. It’s also a lot more difficult to control too so—”

“Gyahaha! Truly wonderful!” Having ground to a stop some way in the distance, Lust’s booming laughter cuts our conversation short from across the field. “’Tis the first time a troll has ever caught me by surprise! To think a troll could completely mask their lust for blood in such a manner! How amusing!”

No, I don’t think the troll even has a lust for blood anymore. I think all of its bloodlust probably left its body at the same time all of its actual blood did...

“Ah, I can explain the details later,” Mei-Mei tells me, ducking her head back inside the troll with a soft squelch. “For now, I suppose I can use my new toy to help you play with Lust. I should have something in here that might prove effective against her.”

Oh? Sounds like Mei-Mei already has a plan!

“Fwah! What do you need me to do?” I ask, turning my attention away from the large, lumbering corpse at my side to focus back on Lust in the distance. From the looks of it, some of the knights that had marched onto the field before have started to recover from the physical and mental shock of the stadium’s impending destruction to surround her with weapons drawn.

“Just do what you usually do,” the muffled voice of Mei-Mei replies. “Beat your chest at her, fling some excrement around, or feed her one of your bananas. Do whatever you want and leave the thinking to me. I’ll support you as best I can and act when the opportunity arises.”

Well, I’m not sure about those suspiciously gorilla-specific actions, but...

“Fwahaha! You got it!” I hold a thumbs-up towards the troll’s gaping wound.

Mei-Mei knows me well! I don’t know how she’s planning on taking down Lust, but it’s probably better if I don’t. Less thinking means more punching, after all! Thinking only leads to more of my precious protein being redirected away from my muscles and into the brain instead. Me trying to play it smart was probably how Lust ended up grabbing me in the first place.

Placing my trust in Mei-Mei, I push all unnecessary thoughts from my mind and focus every ounce of protein in my body into my muscles instead. I can feel the seams of my sailor uniform start to tear and the short sleeves start to split apart under the strain of my bulging biceps as the fabric struggles to contain my rippling form. With Mei-Mei watching my back, and being no longer held back by all the wasted protein being directed to the brain, I should be able to fight at full power without worry from now on!

Fwahaha! In fact, with Lust in her weakened state and with all the meat I ate before the match, I should have no problem beating—!

“—Fweh?!”

In my moment of distraction, I catch a quick glimpse of something big, shiny, and metal hurtling my way. Without enough time to dodge or strike it down, I dig my toes into the dirt to brace myself and scoop the weird shiny thing out of the air instead, catching it in both arms as it barrels against my body.

She threw something! Lust threw something at me from across the field!

Looking down at the hefty thing in my arms, I take a moment to work out what the hell it is she actually threw at me. To my surprise, I find the thing looking right back.

"B-Baby Eater..." it babbles up at me from beneath its shiny, silver helmet. "You... You saved me..."

It’s a man! She threw a man at me! Clearly one of the knights that marched onto the field to try and take her down.

“Y-yeah.” I nod back at him. “On purpose, of course.”

Fwah! That was close! I could’ve punched right through this guy without knowing what it was! That could have made things really awkward for me after the fight!

Still surprised at having a grown man now cradled in my outstretched arms, I barely manage to catch a glimpse of two more shiny man-sized objects hurtling through the air at tremendous speed. They aren’t aimed at me, however. They’re aimed at—

Both of them connect with the dead troll next to me. The first one tears across the troll’s side, ripping a wide gash across its belly and spilling its rotting innards out into the open air. The second one makes impact with the troll’s shoulder, carving out a thick chunk of flesh and revealing the white of the bone underneath.

Falling to the dirt, the two makeshift projectiles groan in pain as they clatter noisily to the ground. More knights, of course. Much like the one that was thrown at me.

Despite how hard they were thrown, they still seem to be in one piece. Maybe. Who knows what’s going on under all that armour. But their pained groans are proof that they’re still alive, at least. The rotting, squishy meat making up the majority of the troll’s bulk must have cushioned their impact.

Seeing as the troll didn’t react at all to the attack, Mei-Mei probably let them hit her on purpose knowing it would save their lives. Being the ‘doctory’ type and all, it makes sense that Mei-Mei would want to—

Suddenly, the troll’s thick arm jerks forward, sweeping a hefty fist across the empty air in front of it.

“Keh... The timing is still off...” a muffled voice chimes from inside. “A delay of about... two point four seconds. I’ll have to make up for it manually.”

Ah. Never mind. She totally tried to swat those guys out of the air just now...

Dropping the armoured man to his feet, I pull him to the side and shove him behind me, attempting to shoo him from the battlefield. He’s kind of interrupting my showdown with Lust and having to carry a man in my arms instead of a cute girl has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

Taking the hint, the man stumbles away, limping over to his injured comrades beneath the troll.

“I was wrong about you, Baby Eater,” he says, helping his fellow knights to their feet. “I don’t think you’re the monster they all made you out to be. Not after saving my life just now.”

“...”

I don’t reply.

I mean, I had no intention of saving this man’s life. It kind of just happened. In fact, I was pretty close to accidentally ending it, had my reaction time been a little quicker.

“And now,” he continues. “After pushing us away, you’re going to sacrifice yourself by distracting Lust so that we can escape with our lives...”

“...”

Again, I don’t reply.

No, I fully plan on beating this woman in a fight. In fact, I’m pushing you away right now because you’re kind of getting in the way of that. I don’t really care what happens to the knights and whether they live or die, as long as their deaths don’t make things awkward for me after the fight. Especially with the Queen. I mean, they’re her knights, right? She’s totally my type, so it’d be annoying if she got upset at me for something stupid like that.

“We won’t forget this, Baby Eater.”

“Yeah, I take back all the bad things I said about you, Baby Eater.”

“Don’t worry, Baby Eater. We’ll evacuate as many people as we can while you’re keeping Lust distracted.”

Leaving me with some parting words, the three knights stumble their way off the field and towards the edge of the crumbling arena where many people are still lying scattered and buried amongst the fallen debris.

I don’t really know what they’re talking about but I feel like if you’re going to say positive things about me you should probably drop that weird nickname. And what bad things were you saying about me anyway?! Why are people I don't know trash-talking me behind my back?! Maybe it's not too late to send them back the way they came. I mean, Lust is the one who threw them in the first place. I can always just blame her later for—

As my brain wanders down a very Bran-esque series of complaints, the sharp twitching of my back muscles signals the sudden approaching danger, and I instinctively move my body to react.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The fleshy crack of muscle against muscle rings out across the stadium as a hefty downward swing of Lust's leg slams a chiselled calf against my raised forearm.

Having had enough of humouring the knights attempting to surround her, Lust had closed the vast distance between us in an instant, charging across the field in an explosion of dirt and debris with the intention of nailing me into the floor with one of her meaty tree trunks.

The resounding boom of our bodies echoes far across the walls of the arena and rumbles deep into the shattered earth beneath our feet, piercing through the confused cries of the many still strewn across the field or attempting to evacuate the stadium, and signalling the beginning of an unending back-and-forth exchange of blood and heavy blows.

Again and again, we swing and kick and claw at one another without backing down. A heavy uppercut to Lust’s chin is met with an immediate knee to my cheek. A swift elbow to her ribs is met with a crushing heel to my shoulder.

The taste of my own blood swims across my tongue. My bruised and battered skin stings with an unfamiliar tenderness, leaving the muscles beneath to throb and ache. And each blow from Lust feels as though it might shatter every bone in my body at once.

I haven’t been in this much pain since... since before I became ‘The Strongest Demon’. A title my wonderful family lovingly gifted me. Back when I was too weak to do anything myself...

But this is different! The pain I had to overcome back then was only a sign of my own weakness. The pain I will overcome today is proof that I’ve truly become the strongest!

“Fwahahaha!” I laugh, shooing away the bittersweet nostalgic thoughts of my childhood to refocus my attention back on the excitement at hand.

“Gyahahaha!” Lust laughs back. Clearly just enjoying the moment, unclouded by any unnecessary thoughts and feelings that might have been brought on by the intensity of our fight.

The sound of our laughter fills the arena as we continue to tear into one another. Rolling and grappling across the field, scattering the screaming masses of injured and escaping spectators—knights and civilians both—still attempting to flee as we leave craterous trails of debris along the blood-splattered dirt, stained a deep crimson from where the wounds of our battle have spilled across the soil. Some of the blood is mine, I'm sure, but there's no doubt that Lust's condition wasn't exactly at its peak when she showed up here today. It’s clear that the fight with Mom back at the Spire really did a number on her. Big time. I can see somebody as resilient as a demon living through something like that, but Lust is an elf. And from what little I know of elves, I don’t think ‘constantly vomiting blood while bleeding profusely from the gaping hole in their chest’ is something elves are prone to doing much of! I mean, with an injury like that, she’s practically a walking corpse at this point. It really is a testament to how powerful Lust truly is.

Fwah~! I wish I could’ve seen how strong she was back in her prime. Before she got sent to the Spire and put to sleep for all those years...

Hm? Actually, on the topic of ‘walking corpses’, I feel like I’m forgetting something really—

“Gyahaha—! Gyu—?!”

As the heat of our battle continues and I brace myself for another of Lust’s attacks, her approach is abruptly cut short by a sudden flash of movement whisking her off her feet and sending her bloodied body tumbling away across the dirt once again.

“... Fweh?”

Wiping the blood, sweat, and dust from my eyes, I squint up at the tall, familiar figure hovering above me beneath the blinding afternoon sun, still gently swaying its strangely limp body back and forth in an unsteady stupor.

“Oh, right. It’s Mei-Mei.”

It’s Mei-Mei. Or, more accurately, it’s Mei-Mei inside the gigantic rotting corpse of a troll. I got so into the fight with Lust, I completely forgot that Mei-Mei was supposed to be backing me up.

“Keh... I don’t think I can use this anymore...” The muffled voice of the dwarf mumbles out as she guides the limp wrist of the troll up to the gaping stomach window to inspect it. Giving the wrist a shake, the hand immediately splits in two, leaving large chunks of mangled meaty fingers to squelch to the floor and revealing the jagged and broken bones beneath.

That must’ve been the hand she hit Lust with.

“Gyahahaha! Truly wonderful!” Lust exclaims, stumbling back to her feet across the field as she beams gleefully over at the two of us. “I knew it was there and yet it still caught me off guard! To think a common troll would catch me unawares not once, but twice!”

Evidently, it seems Lust must’ve forgotten too.

“No, ‘tis no common troll,” Lust continues. “’Tis one who has mastered the ability to mask its own lust for blood! Completely! Without a single trace! In all my years, I have fought very few who were able to accomplish such a feat to such a degree! How amusing!”

No. Again, I think it just doesn’t have any bloodlust to begin with. It’s just a corpse...

“’Twould have taken an entire lifetime to master such a skill! Especially for one so large!”

I mean, in some sense, I suppose it did take an entire lifetime for the troll to master that skill. Literally the entire thing...

“Gyahaha! How amusing indeed!”

Yeah, I get what’s happening.

For somebody like Lust who is hyper-sensitive to feelings of violence and bloodlust, the flow of battle is instinctual to her. She can feel it across her whole body. It’s the same way my muscles can often pick up if there’s somebody strong nearby, except heightened to an insane degree. I recall Wrath telling us back in the Spire how they weren’t able to execute her because she knew if someone was attempting to kill her. She could feel it. So they were forced to leave her asleep for fear of accidentally waking her if they tried.

But the problem with being so sensitive to these feelings of bloodlust is that you begin to completely rely on them. And if somebody like that were to unexpectedly find themselves in battle against something that didn’t actually have those feelings...

Basically, Mei-Mei and her dead pet puppet are completely invisible to Lust in a fight because she’s completely relying on her battle-sensitive instincts to sniff out the subtle cravings of violence wafting off of an inanimate object that doesn’t have any to begin with. As long as I have Lust’s full attention, Mei-Mei can practically do whatever she wants.

I wonder if Mei-Mei managed to figure that out or if she’s just winging this like I am...

I suppose it doesn’t matter either way, as long as the two of us continue to keep it up!

Kicking off the dirt, Lust charges towards me, a grin still on her bloodied face.

“Forgive me, Daughter of Gluttony!” she shouts, sprinting her way towards me.

As she makes her approach, I brace myself for the incoming attack, however—

Before she reaches me, her eyes suddenly flick away from mine, focusing instead on something behind me.

“This will only take but a moment!” Without slowing down, and with a quick pivot of her foot, Lust nimbly dips around me, leaving me in the dust as she continues her way past.

“—Fweh?!”

Caught off-guard by her sudden change in course, I whip around to find the giant woman making a direct beeline for the troll attempting to slink into the background again.

Despite standing only about as tall as the troll’s waist, Lust wraps her arms around one of the monster’s legs and effortlessly hoists the creature up into the air. Without breaking stride, Lust continues her sprint across the field with the troll dangling helplessly in the air above her, laughing gleefully all the while.

“... Fwah! Wait, that’s bad!” The sudden realization that Lust just scooped up Mei-Mei and ran off with her snaps me back to my senses and I attempt to give chase. However—

“Gyahahaha—!” With an explosion of dust and debris, Lust reaches the edge of the arena, tackling the troll—as well as Mei-Mei—into the stadium’s inner wall and continuing her way straight through it. The surrounding walls and upper flooring of the audience’ viewing stands collapse across the path behind her as the two of them disappear behind the crumbling debris.

Reaching the edge of the arena myself, I attempt to dig through the rubble to follow the two of them in, but the constantly collapsing chunks of stadium along with all the shocked and injured people crawling and clambering out of the debris is making it impossible.

“Fwah! That’s really bad!”

There’s no way that troll would stand any kind of chance against Lust in a one-on-one fight. Without me there to act as the focus of Lust’s rampage, there’s nothing stopping that woman from turning it into a pile of rotting monster meat in an instant. Obviously, I don’t care at all about the troll itself. But the fact that Mei-Mei is still inside of it...

“That’s bad, that’s bad, that’s really bad...” I mutter, tearing myself from the pile of debris and sprinting my way along the edge of the arena.

Diving over collapsed rubble and the bodies of still-scrambling people, I find the nearest intact tunnel exit leading off the field and continue my way through it and into the inner stadium itself.

It seems a lot of people are still attempting to evacuate the area, but I pay them no attention, pushing my way past the swathes of people as I desperately attempt to follow the sounds of destruction further into the stadium. I know that’s where I’ll find Lust. And hopefully, a still-intact Mei-Mei...

As I near the sounds of destruction, I notice the passing remains of Lust’s rampage and the path she took through the walls of the stadium, all the while carrying the troll with her.

A large discoloured foot lies beneath a half-caved-in ceiling. Chunks of broken bone are wedged into the walls, clumps of putrid meat still hanging off of them. A trail of rotting entrails guides my path forward, and at the end of that path...

“Mei-Mei!” I shout, coming to a grinding stop as I spot my target.

Broken chains and metal bars litter the cracked and crumbling room, its collapsed walls torn from the floor by an explosion of sheer violence. A place where slaves were kept, it looks like. Although any signs of slaves—alive or dead—aren’t present any longer.

At the other end of the room, the giant figure of Lust sits atop a lump of meat, giggling gleefully to herself as she pounds her heavy fists into it again and again.

It’s the troll—or whatever’s left of it—its barely recognizable remains quickly being reduced to an oozing puddle of rot spreading across the floor.

With panicked thoughts of the little dead dwarf inside, I step into the room with the intention of rushing Lust and tearing her away—

“Yeah? What?”

—But I’m immediately stopped in my tracks by a familiar voice by my side. Looking down...

“Fwah! It’s Mei-Mei!”

It’s Mei-Mei. Looking relatively unharmed, the tiny woman stands next to me, her eyes glued to the scene of Lust as she pummels the remains of the troll that was once under her control only minutes ago.

“Keh... What a waste...” she sighs wistfully. It’s hard to tell with Mei-Mei, but the expression on her face seems somewhat sad as she watches the display of violence on the other end of the room.

“Are you alright?!” I ask her, resisting the urge to pick the small woman off the floor and aggressively rub my cheek against hers. “How’d you get away?”

Mei-Mei shrugs. “I’m fine. I just ditched the troll when things started looking bad for me. Slipped right out the back door. That idiot was so absorbed in her throttling of a hollow corpse, she didn’t even notice me leave.”

“Fweh? The back door?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Ah...” Waving away the thoughts of where exactly somebody might exit the ‘back door’ of a troll, I turn back towards Lust across the room, ready to charge at her one more time. “Mei-Mei, you stay here! I’ll go finish off Lust and—!”

“Ah, I wouldn’t get any closer if I were you,” Mei-Mei tells me, pulling her eyes away from the preoccupied Lust to fish for something in one of her many pockets.

“Fweh? Why not?”

“I told you I had something that might prove effective against Lust, didn’t I? Ah, there it is...” Finding what she was looking for, she pulls out something small and metal from her pocket. It’s thin, cylindrical, and vaguely familiar-looking. Like something I’ve seen her use once before in the Spire...

With another wistful sigh, she absent-mindedly caresses the tip of the object with her thumb as she softly shakes her head.

“Well, I would’ve liked to explore that experiment to its fullest, but... I suppose it can’t be helped now.” Holding the object out in front of her, she raises her thumb above it.

Hm...? Oh! I remember! I remember where I’ve seen her use that before!

“Fwah! It was the putty!” I shout. “The one you used on the Curse Ward door to—!”

“Keh-heh!” With a short, maniacal cackle, Mei-Mei slams her thumb down.

“—Gyu?” With a small tilt of her head, Lust pauses her mounted pummelling of the troll to glance momentarily over at me and Mei-Mei in the distance, before—

The oozing remains of the troll give off an intense flash of light, and a resounding boom swallows the two of them up in a burning fireball of heat and noise.